That giant, then rounding out a history of thirty years' continuous service in the Senate of the United States, unlike the men of this weaker day, reserved the right to his own honest and personal political belief.

He steadily refused to countenance the extending of slavery, although himself a holder of slaves; and, although he admitted the legality and constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act, he deplored that act as much as any.

To the eventual day of his defeat he stood, careless of his fate, firm in his own principles, going down in defeat at last because he would not permit his own state legislature--headed then by men such as Warville Dunwody and his friends--to dictate to him the workings of his own conscience.

Stronger than Daniel Webster, he was one of those who would not obey the dictates of that leader, and he _did_ set up his "conscience above the law." These two men, Benton and Dunwody, therefore, were at the time of which we write two gladiators upon the scenes of a wild western region, as yet little known in the eastern states, though then swiftly coming forward into more specific notice.
Perhaps thirty or forty slaves were employed about Tallwoods home farm, as it was called.

They did their work much as they liked, in a way not grudging for the main part.